Culture and context in Interprofessional education: Expectations in Australia and Japan

Abstract

The attributes of collaborative practice in health care vary across contexts, necessitating the adaptation of interprofessional education curricula to prepare students for the collaborative practice expected in their respective health care systems. Culture, when conceptualised through an organisational lens, allows an analysis of the shared assumptions, beliefs and values, without seeking to reduce to a uniform construct. This article explores the differences in interprofessional education competencies between Australia and Japan and considers the systems and patient expectations, which underpin each. While collaborative competence exhibits some similarities across contexts, competency frameworks differ in emphasis, language and key terminology, which highlight multiple points of difference in the expectations of interprofessional collaborative practice across contexts. There are education and practice consequences of these different perspectives of collaborative practice, in an increasingly mobile international workforce.